Does anyone sell at craft fairs?

[Baldieheid]

And if so, and you do well.....how?

I've just done one and it didn't go well.

If you do, what kind of items do you make?

Mine are handpainted cards at £4 each.

Choc maker three stalls down from me sold out in an hour, and her boxes of 12 were £20 a pop. Very pretty chocs, granted. So pretty I bought some and spent all my takings lol

Don't on any account go near NUMONDAY - I hear reaaaly poor things about it

I was at a craft fair yesterday as a punter, and am on a limited budget but this is what I bought if anyone is interested

Jar of Christmas chutney £3

Handmade sequin headpiece £20. Complete impulse purchase. Will be perfect for festivals.

Glass straw and topper my daughter bought from pocket money £5

My friend bought a small slice of Christmas cake with a picture on as a gift for my son £4

I was very tempted to buy some rose Earl Grey loose leaf tea but at £12 couldn't justify it.

For the right customer, cards are not dead OP. I buy cards at most of the craft markets I do. As I said before, find the right niche and you will sell. Find a market with the right customer.

Really? Goodness, it's a minefield.

I did sell some cards, so perhaps they're not dead entirely. I buy them too, mostly in supermarkets for a quid, so I understand the issue with my price.

lots of good advice here, it needs to be the right market and the right product. Having said that you may need to decide if it is more important to you to make what you love and hope it sells or change what you make to increase sales but find you stop enjoying the process. That takes time! Cards have an upper price limit, small mounted paintings less so. Do you have some bigger scale pieces that you can have on your stall to let people begin to identify your style? Even if they don’t sell they are part of your brand. This year I am seeing a lot of painted items, pebbles, pieces of wood etc.
Days when you don’t sell a lot are disheartening in the extreme but try to alter your expectations, talk to people about your work, what influences your designs, give out business cards, get to know other stall holders so you hear about markets, look round at how stalls are laid out. Every day is a school day. The art and craft community is one I love being part of, you just need to find your niche in it.

I sell water colour cards amongst other things but sell them £4 for 3,they won't sell otherwise.

This year has been slow in my experience, I've been averaging a third of what I normally take. It is what it is, people aren't spending this year.

Food ALWAYS sells well, I'm half thinking of baking again as people always find the money for food at events.

Oh I have found my people!
I find jams and honey, cakes and brownies sell quick. My item is quiet heavy so puts people off unless they have a car nearby.
I've had a very disheartening weekend fair that was expensive, wet and cold. Today had a stall in a warm building for a £5 and had great sales. Swings and roundabouts.

Also, I'm afraid I wouldn't pay £4 for a card unless it included a free £2 lottery scratch card with it. Though I have bough prints (a4) for a £10.

Christmas markets and fairs are too common place in my local area and people can't support them all.

I don't think it's that your cards are crap.

But they have to be spectacular for someone to pay £4-5 per card at a craft fayre. And pastel watercolours aren't really the way to go for that.

I buy really beautiful decoupage cards from a woman every year at our local craft fayre. Hers are absolutely beautiful, and sell out. They are £1.20 to £3 (for a huge one) and frankly she could charge double.

I organised a fayre recently, and the people who did really well, were those with nice, usable things at low prices. One woman was complaining how she'd made nothing. But her products were chunks of wood glued to plastic flower heads with a cheap candle wedged in the centre. For £18-£38. She thought they were fabulous.

In contrast the woman selling children's hair bows in lovely fabrics, from 50p to £3.50 a bow, had one of her best fayres ever, and a queue most times I popped my head in.

Used to, but agree it's food that does best, even crappy and not at all handmade things like bought in sweets packaged in a fancy way etc.

I wont support etsy as its American, thinking about folksy but my stuff doesn't seem to sell well online

I research my markets and do better at festivals - generally this year I've had the same turnover as last year at my big events - which I'm taking as a win as generally people are down on last year

I still make mistakes on which event to go to and I'll either do really well or sell nothing - selling nothing coincides with mlm being sold normally - my stuff isn't mainstream

But it's hard bloody work and being outdoors more so - if I didn't like seeing people wearing my designs I think I'd give up...butvthis year I have been meeting people wearing my designs 'in the wild' so not at the event they bought them at!!

My advise is to think -
If there were 3 cards sellers at your event, why would people buy yours?
What makes you unique?

If you're producing original art it is wasted to make every card unique.

Make the original art into prints, sell them plain, mounted and framed (obvs different prices) and do prints of them for the cards.

Then also use the same prints resized on key rings, gift tags, tea towels, bookmarks, wrapping paper etc. Even printed on fabric people can use as a headscarf, handkerchief, beeswax wraps, or bigger to make bags out of (depends what your art is).

Also, maybe you could team up with someone and have some of your art made into ink stamps, sell as a kit with an ink pad and blank cards so people can do their own mash up design (or gift it to children).

Cards round here go for £3 each or 4 for £10. Mainly hand printed rather than hand painted. And nobody has only cards on their stalls - a mix of cards, prints, framed originals, handpainted baubles etc.

It's very hard to get a good display with only cards. The first stall I did was almost all cards and sold very little. As I refined my range and got a much more varied stall I sold more cards from the tiny remaining corner of the display than I had from the original mainly-cards stalls. People need a reason to come over and loook properly, and if you can get them asking questions they are more likely to buy.

And finding the right fair is vital, as well as the right product mix. I went from £30 in a day to £500-900 in a weekend once I found my sales niche.

I find schools and church fayres the best, people come to support and spend.

God, I could give you all a smooch right now. Thank you!! I'm drawn to the idea of selling a4 paintings and drawings rather than cards, and have already found nice mounts for them online and placed an order.

I go to quite a few fairs because I love a browse. Sorry I can't help from a sellers point of view, but as a buyer, I agree with pp. I'm a complete sucker for lovely prints (as my house is testament to!). Typically I see a range of originals and prints and a selection of sizes' some framed and some unframed. Multipacks of cards could be a good addition.

But I'm sorry to say I too wouldn't pay £4 for a card. No matter how beautiful, it isn't something to be cherished the way it deserves to be. Cards are disposable. Stick it in a mount and it's a completely different prospect.

I am a buyer rather than a seller. I don't really buy cards unless I see something that is perfect for the recipient, which is very rare. I do like original art.

I buy on etsy mostly, folksy seems to have less stuff nowadays. I also go to local art fairs, but rarely find anything at a mixed market that I want to buy.

OP Check out the craft and flea tagged photos on instagram to get a feel for what kind of things illustrators/artists sell on their stalls. You do have to have a variety of things.

instagram.com/thecraftandflea?igshid=NzZlODBkYWE4Ng==

That looks brilliant, thank you so much. I've got so much to learn!

Thank you to everyone for sharing your experience and advice. I'm still feeling a bit lost but I've got a lot of new directions to try thanks to you lovely lot x

What sort of items does she sell?

I used to sell my cards very successfully at craft fairs in Kent and only stopped because the venue changed and it was too far away.
My late husband and I exhibited at fairs for several years, and it was, eventually, a great success. I say eventually because, at first it was a disaster. I think we worked out why.

1. Newbies need to allow time to get accepted and known by the buyers. Buyers will often have been going to a particular card stall for years, and stick with them through loyalty. Eventually they will find you but if they don’t, well there are always new customers coming along who haven’t been before and they will want to see you.
2. Good Fair organisers should limit the amount of similar stalls, so, depending on the total number of stalls at the Fair, if there are more than two or three card stalls out of, say, 20, they are probably spread too thickly.
3. Demos - If you have something that makes your stall different, that helps. I used to sit and make a card at the fair so people could watch me. I also used to type out the instructions for making the card I was demonstrating so that people could take them away to try for themselves. These instructions included a list of what you’d need to make the card. Eventually, we extended the stall to include the components - card, stamps, ink pads, glitter and glue etc. This was a great success because it was easy to encourage people to buy these so they could make the card at home.
4. Make flyers to put in with each purchase, showing your name and mobile number. It looks more professional if you give yourselves a name. Mine was B Craft Supplies. (I have hidden part of the name as I don’t trade any more and there is a similar name on an online craft shop). Once I got established and built up some regular custom, I ordered paper bags and carrier bags from the internet. Incidentally, if you do this, you can, at cost, have your name and phone number printed on them. I didn’t do this, believing the flyers were enough.
5. Last but not least, my husband was very handsome and the ladies loved him. He used to chat them up (not in a creepy way!) and it helped sales, I am sure. Ladies who buy cards are usually older, so his gentle flirting went down a treat. I must stress, he was never creepy or intrusive and he could tell when to chat. Eventually, some of my customers went straight to him for advice! Bit rich as I was the card maker and initially he was just there to carry the boxes and keep me company! I honestly think that some of the customers came to the stall just to see him! As long as they bought, that was fine with me! He was very artistic himself though and had followed my cardmaking for so long that he knew it inside out and could answer any questions. I hope this helps but mainly it boils down to how good, and preferably a bit out of the ordinary, your cards are. I also did a good trade on making cards to commission.

From experience, I think your cards are probably a bit expensive for a craft fair, even though, as a crafter, I know they are actually a good price. Unfortunately, buyers don’t see it that way. I used to think they sometimes got confused between craft fairs and jumble sales! People don’t care how much time you spent on the card and you definitely can’t charge the going rate for labour. Everybody wants a bargain these days and they particularly expect it at Fairs. Stick to your guns on price. Have a look at what others are charging, and work around that. If you do an extra special card on commission, make sure you charge a fair bit more for that but agree it with the customer first. I found personalised cards were very popular and could justify the extra cost by the time and thought involved.

When you get used to them, craft fairs are really good fun and you can make a bit of money from them. Eventually you will find that the other card sellers there will direct their customers to you if they can’t help them! Naturally, you do the same for them.
Sometimes one of your cards will be sent to someone who then contacts you because they want some themselves. That’s a feel-good moment!
You aren’t likely to get rich though. Look on it as a fun day out with a bit of payment at the end of it.
Good luck! if I can help any more, please ask, but do give it a go!
Ann